


We are the greatest pretenders in the cold morning light

by nynyve



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: F/M, Post 5x05, and bellamy deserves the world, because i'm frankly living, but this is really angst, i also love jealous/pinning clarke, i like echo and don't want her to suffer, spec based on next chapter trailer
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-25
Updated: 2018-05-25
Packaged: 2019-05-13 16:58:24
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,695
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14752733
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nynyve/pseuds/nynyve
Summary: "Show me a hero, and I'll write you a tragedy" F. Scott Fitzgeralt.Clarke leaves Wonkru camp for Madi's safety. She also leaves to stop the pain in her heart.





	We are the greatest pretenders in the cold morning light

**Author's Note:**

> I'm sorry but I really want this season to HURT.

Clarke pushes Gaia against the Wall and puts a knife against her throat even before she can think about what she’s doing.

‘You touch Madi and I make sure you regret it. Deeply.’

‘You can’t change the fact that she’s the last natural nightblood, it’s only logical that she becomes our next leader…’

‘She’s a child, she’s not your Heda, and I’m definitely not letting you near her in any moment. I’ve seen what your teachings have done to Octavia. You stay away from my daughter.’

‘You won’t be able to stop Blodreina if she chooses to take the kid as her second. And she will’ Gaia’s eyes are hard and her smile makes Clarke’s blood boil.

‘We’ll see about that. In the meantime if I were you I would sleep with an open eye’ it’s been a long time since Clarke last felt this hot fury blinding her. She feels so mad she is even scared at how easily Gaia’s throat could be sliced if her hand applied a little more pressure. And how much every single fiber in her body is screaming for her to do it.

But in the end she drops her hand slowly and puts the knife back in its case. With a final warning look Clarke turns back and walks the corridor while her brain starts working on a plan, trying to forget how sure of herself Gaia looked.

 

***

 

‘You are leaving.’

Echo has noticed the weird way Clarke has been acting the last hours. After all, she was a spy not long ago even if it now seems like another lifetime. Clarke’s been trying to avoid Bellamy ever since they had come back to Polis ruins, she noticed, but in a timid cordial way, nothing too evident. And has been perfectly nice to every one of them, including Echo.  

But these last hours she has had a hard look on her face and is been appearing and disappearing all through their improvised camp. When Bellamy had tried to talk to her, Echo saw across the camp the way Clarke steeled herself and even slapped his hand away. The Azgeda warrior couldn’t hear the words they were saying but it was not difficult to guess by the way Bellamy seemed to be taken aback.

_She has a backpack_ , Echo realized earlier, _and is trying to act normal but keeps checking how many guards are watching the camp_. So she had just followed her instinct and waited until it was dark night to leave the room she and Bellamy are sharing.

Not long after she posted herself at the darkened ally near the church (or what was left of it, more accurately) she saw a petite figure sneak inside the old building. The golden reflect of that hair under the moon light was unmistakable.

And so they are here now, one of them checking hurriedly a backpack and the other watching silently from the door.

‘Yes’ cames the answer curtly after a few seconds of shock, ‘Madi is not safe here’.

That hadn’t cross Echo’s mind.

‘Blodreina?’

‘No, not Octavia. Or at least not yet. But Gaia’s cult seem to believe Madi should be second in command to cement their faith and Octavia’s leadership, and that is most definitely not going to happen. Not while I’m alive’.

Echo feels a wave of sympathy watching Clarke’s fiery determination.

‘We could have helped you if you had asked’ the former spy says, gently. ‘I owe you my life, Wanheda. I haven’t forget about that.’

‘I know’ a few Clarke’s hairs get into her eyes as she keeps checking the bag and she huffs angrily ‘But I didn’t want to put any of you at risk and, frankly, is easier this way. We are going to go back to our home and come with a plan to save my mum, Kane, Raven and everyone else. And all of you should stay here to try and put some sense into Octavia’s mind’.

It’s perfectly logical and still there is something wrong. So Echo asks the question she really _really_ doesn’t want to.

‘What about Bellamy?’

That seems to startle Clarke enough for a second that she stops fuming with the bag.

‘What about him?’ the woman asks and Echo notices the guarded way her lips pronounce that sentence.

‘You were going to leave without telling him?’

‘I already told you-‘

‘You know what I mean, Clarke. Bellamy waking in the morning to find you are gone and just being fine with that is… not an option.’ _Don't make me beg you, please_.

Blonde hair obscures Clarke’s eyes the moment she fixes her stare into the ground, looking intensely at the dark backpack as if it had the right answer hidden inside.

‘I think you are wrong’ she finally says, slowly. ‘Bellamy has a family of his own now, and so do I. Our priorities are not the same, and I get it. He’s been with you six years, and I’ve been on my own the same amount of time. It’s just-‘ her voice cracks just a little bit ‘It’s who we are now. And I’m not going to stay here to put Madi in danger, or to make anybody choose a side the moment Octavia crosses the line.’

_I’m leaving so he doesn’t have to choose_ , it’s what Echo hears. But if Clarke is talking about Bellamy’s sister or Bellamy’s lover she is not so sure.

‘Please, tell him I can’t put Madi in danger. Tell him I need my mum’ she seems on the verge of tears now, her façade completely broken, and Echo feels as if someone had punched her in the lungs.

Because Clarke looks at her directly now, and she can see how impossibly blue her eyes are and how they seem to implore for her to take care of the man she-

_Oh_.

 

***

 

‘You think you can just disappear one day?’ he shouts while approaching her at the stream, and the first thing Clarke notices is that he is angry. Really angry. Like, pre-Praimfaya-Bellamy-angry.

And her heart, _traitor_ , jumps in her chest.

She fights to get her arm free from his grip and looks back at him defiantly.

‘I was trying to protect Madi and I didn’t want any of you to-’

‘Bullshit!’ She can see the way his body trembles, how he crosses his arms, how his nose flares with anger. The sun kisses his freckles amid leaves shadows, while he stands tall and muscular beneath that blue shirt in the middle of the forest.

He is impossibly handsome.

Clarke knows she has to steel herself. Otherwise, she isn’t sure if she can refrain from doing something really stupid they both will regret later.

‘I’ve been living on my own for six years, and I am not going to ask for your permission to do anything that I believe is correct!’

‘I’m not talking about permission! I’m talking about together! You and me, head and heart, the leaders, the team, all that we have always been!’

‘We are not that people anymore, Bellamy! Haven’t you noticed?’

‘See, that’s what makes me angrier of all, those first days on the ground, we were! It was as if those six years never passed. But suddenly you act like that never happened and I just can’t understand!’

_Please be strong_ , she screams at herself internally. _Please don’t say it_.

‘Those days were an illusion’ she answers, softly. She can’t be mad at him, not even in this moment. Suddenly his eyes are so dark and so deep she feels almost naked under his gaze.

‘Why?’ he demands but his body language betrays the anger he tries to show and moves towards her, just a little bit.

Clarke feels trapped in his warmth, almost intoxicated with his closeness, can even heard Raven on her head _you’ve got it bad, girl_.

She wants to lie. Her brain compels her to do it.

_But_

‘Because you already have a person to be what we have always been.’

_she can’t_.

Bellamy seems so confused for a second it’s almost comical and she would laugh if her heart wasn’t breaking into a million pieces.

‘What do you mean?’ he asks so softly she barely hears him over the forest sounds. His body seems to gravitate towards hers.

‘I radioed you. To keep myself from falling insane, at the beginning. I felt I needed someone real even if you weren’t answering. But then years passed, and I started telling Madi those stories… And almost all of them had you. I missed you. Not just my friend. I felt I had lost my other half.’

He is so close now she can feel his breath on her skin. The urge of running her hands over his cheeks is overwhelming now.

‘And in that Eligius cell, for a moment, I thought I had dreamt of you in the dark standing next to the Rover. But you came, and you hold me, and you were real.' 

'I hold you in my arms' he whispers 'because in my dreams you always dissapeared the moment i tried to touch you.'

_So then touch me_ , she wants to scream. _So then kiss me, hug me, because I love you and I'm not dead_.

'Don't make me say it out loud, Bellamy' they are so close, so close she can almost taste him 'because if I do it there's no turning back. Let me at least be your friend.'

Clarke hates the way her own body is trembling, the way her voice wavers, the way Bellamy's eyes seem to pierce her soul. 

'Clarke' he says reverently, adding nothing more. His left hand caresses her hair, softly, and she gives into the touch closing her eyes, wishing it was only the two of them against the world again, wishing six years hadn't change who they are to each other.

But their moment passed, and she _knows_.

The moment her eyes open the wall around her heart is up again.

So she takes a step back, away from him, and breathes.

'I'm sorry.' There are tears in his eyes. 'We should go.'

She turns, and leaves.

 

***

 

**Author's Note:**

> Yell at me if you want :)


End file.
